Day 15: Streetside Stories (Podhuveli Kadaigal)

As the title suggests, we wanted to collect stories from the streetside, mainly from women on how they feel coming out to public places, and what they experience and what could improve their experiences. We wanted to reach out to women in public places like markets, parks, bus stands and more and hear their stories.

So, we decided to conduct a volunteer-based research activity as part of the 2018 Prajnya 16 days campaign against Gender Violence. On the 9th of December, when this event was scheduled to happen, we found we couldn't mobilise a large number of volunteers. This being a volunteer-based activity the scope of the project was dependent on the number of data collectors. Owing to the small size of the group - only 5 data collectors in total, we decided to split into two teams and head to one of the popular areas of Chennai - the T Nagar.

One of the teams went to Natesan Park and the roadside shops outside the park, while the other team went to Panagal Park and the area around it. At the end of the half-day activity, around 2 pm, we could only interview 18 women, but what a diverse group it was! We interviewed women from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and age groups. At the end of the day, interacting with women from different walks of life on a particular kind of gender violence gave us all a unique insight into the problem.

This research activity just doesn't end here. We are transcribing the interviews and putting together a detailed report of our findings and observations. We will soon be adding a link to the report here.

Day 13: Speak Up! Storytelling open mic for women

On the 13th day of the 2018 Prajnya 16 days Campaign against Gender Violence, Prajnya hosted an open mic storytelling evening for young women at our office. The idea behind the event was to invite young women to a women's circle and create a safe space to share stories of street sexual harassment.

This event was facilitated by our very first campaign coordinator, Nirupama Sarathy. The event started with the nine of us sitting on the floor and writing our name tags and choosing one adjective to define ourselves. Nirupama, then made us all write down the different actions which constitute to street sexual harassment.

With this glaring visual of two charts filled with actions pertaining to sexual harassment in front of us, each of us started sharing our experiences of street sexual harassment. Some of us even found it difficult to pick one story to share. The evening proceeded with laughter and a few tears. A ball of rope was passed between each narrator and we held on to it till it was time. The final imagery was a crisscross of threads which pulled with tension while narrating painful experiences and sagged in relief while the narrator switched to lighter moments and laughter.

We ended the session by letting go of the thread by making one wish. Nirupama then shared some posters on street sexual harassment laws. As the event was coming to an end, most of us felt like we could go on sharing as if a dam had broken resulting in all of us feeling lighter.

I can't thank Nirupama enough for taking the time out of her busy schedule to facilitate this amazing session!

The Dummies' Guide to Sexual Harassment

The mannequin at Chamiers.
Picture courtesy: Sreelekha Raghavan

If street sexual harassment was a visual, how would it look?

This is the question behind our art intervention, "The Dummies' Guide to Sexual Harassment." As part of the campaign this year, we've placed 4 mannequins in different parts of city, inviting people to mark the parts of their body where they've been touched without their consent.

This idea for a city-wide mannequin placement was born in a conversation with Aditi Surendra, who wanted to use mannequins to start a conversation about women's experience of street sexual harassment.

Special thanks to our partners, Sundari Silks and Tranz Mannequins for providing us with these mannequins! And a big thank you to our location partners - Chamiers, PCVC, Shree Ayurvedic Multispecialty Hospital and Women's Christian College - for helping us take this vision forward.

Thanks to the following publications for covering this initiative!

The News Minute: These Chennai mannequins show how often women are groped on streets

The Times of India: What are these mannequins doing in Chennai?

The Hindu: Saying with stickers, what they have gone through

Deccan Chronicle: Mannequins to judge extent of street abuse

dtNEXT: Mannequins spring up to break silence on street sexual abuse

Stories on Wheels: Day 3 focuses on street sexual harassment

On Day 3 of the 2016 campaign, Prajnya volunteers took to the streets on 3 different routes from Guindy to Semmozhi Poonga with one thing on their mind - getting stories from women about street sexual harassment.

The videos from the programme will be edited into a film and screened at the public forum on street sexual harassment, on December 10 at 4pm, at Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya in T Nagar.

Thanks to the following publications for covering this initiative:

The New Indian Express: Women on wheels take the streets

 

Day 12 -- Be Street smart

Earlier this evening, Prajnya in partnership with Chennai Volunteers (www.chennaivolunteers.org), held a discussion, "Be Street smart", centred on street sexual harassment. Participants ranged from high school, college students to professionals to home makers. With a range of views and attitudes, participants discussed questions like, "Is staring harassment?", "Does dressing provocatively make one more likely to face harassment", "What constitutes street sexual harassment?". Participants also discussed what men and women are allowed to do and not do in public, and the line that separates flirting and harassment.  The session ended with a discussion on how to react to harassment and what they can do when faced with harassment. The event included a screening of the documentary, 'Mera Apna Sheher', by Sameera Jain.

Intersect: Dialogue between Chennai Police and student representatives

The official press release:

College students in the city continue to face sexual harassment on the street and while using public transport. This was discussed today at Intersect, a consultative dialogue between students and the Chennai Police, facilitated by Prajnya as part of the 2010 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence.

Invitations were sent to over 30 colleges in the city and nine responded positively, submitting a brief that summarized the specific concerns of students in their college.

Students revealed through their responses that they faced harassment particularly in buses, and around bus stands, irrespective of the college location. In addition, an emerging problem is that of SMS and cyber stalking.

The students representatives also observed that the majority of those harassed did not complain or ask for help, mainly because people would think they were making a fuss for no good reason. They welcomed the opportunity to interact directly with the police, suggesting that women police officer visit colleges more frequently and organise meetings and workshops.

Intersect was held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Outdoor Stadium meeting room and attended by representatives from Prajnya as well as several police officers including Joint Commissioner Chennai North Mr. Seshasayee, Deputy Commissioner Kilpauk Ms. S. Lakshmi, Asst Commissioner Vepery Mr. Ashokkumar, Inspector Kilpauk Police Station Subbaraj, Inspector Vepery Police Station Jawahar, Inspector Indian Coach Factory Police Station Muniandi and All-Women's Police Station, Kilpauk Inspector, Aryamala.

Gender violence and moral policing

Cross-posted from Sharanya Manivannan's blog and from the The Sunday Guardian, New Delhi.

Op-Ed: Chennai’s Moral Police
Sharanya Manivannan, September 26, 2010

In Chennai, the term “moral police” is too often a literal one.

Two relatively high-profile incidents in the past week cast the city’s police force in a frightening light, as enforcers of a deeply misogynistic worldview who go as far as to violate the law in order to uphold their principles.

In the first case, a married woman who was with a male friend at the Kotturpuram railway station was apprehended by a police officer, who then physically assaulted the friend in question and cast aspersions as to why the duo were together. When told that her husband was fully aware of this friendship, the officer threatened to make bystanders testify against her.

In the second instance, a 21-year old lesbian who had left home and subsequently been reported as a missing person by her parents voluntarily went to the Thiru-Vi-Ka police station to declare herself an adult operating under her own autonomy. She was detained for a day, and released only into the custody of a relative. Activists from the gay rights group Sangama, who were supporting her, were harassed.

The moral universe occupied by too many members of Chennai’s police force is a murky one, bolstered by a flawed understanding of “Tamil culture”, unchecked sexism, and an abiding disrespect for the law itself.

But these are hardly isolated incidents. If anything, they have only served to reinforce what every woman in this city already knows: the police are more likely to harm than help. As journalist Chithira V put it to me, the security-heavy Gopalapuram neighbourhood – where the state’s CM resides – is a dangerous area, not in spite of but because of the presence of the police. Even the 20 all-women police stations in the greater Chennai area cannot effectively address the daily threats and aggravation that take place in public spaces, by members of the force itself.

Chennai is a city of fear and loathing, and the deep distrust in its sanctioned protectors is not a phantasm of urban legend. The city’s profound conservatism is in conflict with the needs of a modernizing population, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the manner in which its police relegate law and ethics in favour of their private concepts of morality.

The misogyny of the police force finds an accomplice in the unresponsiveness of Chennai’s ordinary citizenry. These instances are too omnipresent to enumerate, but one in particular, also shared by Chithira V, illustrates this pervasive attitude to chilling accuracy: some weeks ago, three women were attacked by a man with a knife on Besant Nagar beach. When they scattered, screaming, the man calmly walked away unperturbed. None of the families or couples sitting near these women paid any attention to the skirmish. The women called the police; an officer arrived, rounded up two random men, and insisted that they were the attackers. The real attacker not only went unpunished, but surely orchestrated the attack expecting this. Even in a group of three, the women were – in the city’s understanding of this word – “alone”.

So deeply embedded is the belief that one must be vigilant of the vigilantes that many women go to lengths to avoid interactions with the police, even at their own peril. A friend who was being followed by an ex-boyfriend felt she could not approach the police if the stalking became more invasive, because her former relationship with him would surely be held against her, and render her a target for humiliation and harassment. I personally leave home well before dark whenever I have planned a night out; having been questioned twice by a policeman on a bike right in front of my apartment, I changed my schedule. This is only an inconvenience, but the sinister underpinnings behind why I had to do it are hard to ignore. When my parents enquired about what the policeman was doing, they were told that a brothel was allegedly operating near the premises. There is no brothel here, as far as I know, but there is a women’s hostel.

An edited version appeared in today’s The Sunday Guardian, New Delhi.

In the news: 96% women feel unsafe in Delhi

The results of a survey carried out by Centre for Equity and Inclusion (Cequin), in association with the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) reconfirm the opinion many have, that Delhi is an unsafe city for women. We will look to find recent data for the other metros as well. I wonder, for instance, what a similar study would reveal about Chennai: personally, I feel very safe in some spaces and very unsafe in others, irrespective of the time of the day or night.

96 percent women feel unsafe in Delhi: Survey

Updated on Friday, November 13, 2009, 18:43 IST



New Delhi: Nearly 96 percent women do not feel safe in the national capital, especially so in the popular markets of Chandni Chowk, Connaught Place and Karol Bagh and in the buses, according to a survey.

The survey was conducted by the Centre for Equity and Inclusion (Cequin) in association with the Centre for Media Studies (CMS).

"Almost 96 percent of the women in Delhi believe that women are not very safe in the city and 44 percent of the abused respondents chose to remain silent after the incident," said Lora Prabhu, director and co-founder of Cequin.

"While sexual harassment in public places in Delhi is a common phenomenon, it is not dependent on the economic status of the individual," she added.

The report is based on the responses of 630 women in the age group 12-55 living in New Delhi and Old Delhi across the major socio-economic strata.

Sixty percent women feel that girls under 10 are most vulnerable to sexual harassment, according to the survey, and nearly 82 percent women feel that public buses are the most unsafe mode of transport in the national capital.

The survey also reveals that 88 percent women feel that when a woman is harassed in a public place she rarely gets help from bystanders.

And most women do not feel they can trust the police. Only 19 percent feel that the victims should report to the police.

"While there is always the provision of using the existing IPC (Indian Penal Code) sections like 375, 354 and 509 to deal with heinous crimes like rape, physical molestation and eve-teasing, it is the implementation of these laws which constitutes the major problem," said Sara Pilot, Cequin's chairperson.

"A large number of these incidents happen because of the flawed concept of masculinity giving rise to deviant male behaviour," Pilot added.

One of the key findings of the survey was that the level of awareness among the respondents on existing laws and support mechanisms is very low.

According to the findings, "harassment in public spaces has a hugely negative impact on women's mobility and access".

The survey is a part of Cequin's bigger initiative to sensitise Delhiites towards the problem.

"The Delhi Daredevils team is supporting the initiative," said cricketer Virender Sehwag.

"We are aiming at a public campaign which would include public advertisements on radio, television, posters, hoardings. The campaign would target young men and boys and effect a mindset change through sensitisation and deconstruction of stereotype images," Pilot added.

"This will encourage men and boys to respect women, and be proactive in shunning all violence against women," she said.

IANS